BY JANET BOWDAN

Here in Massachusetts, my university just posted a coronavirus update that notes, in passing, that “higher education is not part of Phase I and II of the vaccination plan.”

Wait. Why aren’t higher education faculty and staff at least in Phase II?

Obviously (at least to me), health care workers and first responders should come first; people who have underlying conditions seem to come next; but I am seeing many workers* being named to these lists and absolutely no awareness that university workers are frequently coming into contact with precisely the group who are most likely to spread COVID-19—college-age students. My own university insists that we have “boots on the ground”—the phrase our administration has been using to refer to teaching in the classroom—because the administration is justifiably concerned that our already cash-strapped private institution will not survive the year if we do not bring our students and professors and, of necessity, staff, back to campus.

I understand the need to risk my health and my family’s health, though it seems weird to say this, for the greater good of the university community. Yet I would like to see my peers on this list to get the vaccine relatively soon instead of vaguely at the end, perhaps the end of summer or the beginning of next year, when it may be too late for many of us.

According to Elizabeth Redden’s “Higher Ed Workers Get in the Covid Vaccine Line,” twenty states are following recommendations proposed by the CDC’s Advisory Committeee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), grouping higher education workers with K–12 teachers in the second phase of vaccination. That includes my neighboring states of Connecticut, New York, and Maine.

But what does this grouping of higher education workers at the end of the list with the general population say about prioritizing safe access to education and the communities which host those institutions? Are the list-makers assuming that all higher education institutions are privileged enough to shut down for as long as they need—that we can all teach from home? Many are not able to do so. And even some campuses that could afford to close for the fall, like my neighbors at Smith College and Mount Holyoke College, are now opening for spring, despite the disturbing emergence of new, more transmissible strains of COVID-19.

My students are wonderful; in the fall semester, they resisted the temptations not only to go to parties but also to hang out with friends outside their bubbles. They were careful to self-isolate and get tested if they learned they had somehow been exposed to someone who showed symptoms or tested positive. And yet occasionally masks slipped off the nose, or they wanted to ask questions and came within two or three feet. I feel extraordinarily lucky that, unlike three of my colleagues still suffering from post-COVID-19 symptoms, I appear not to have caught the virus in the last two semesters or given it to anyone else. We still have at least one semester to go before most people here will have vaccines. And yet, here we are, opening up the classrooms and welcoming our students back from their bubbles.

* Some of the workers who are on the list ahead of university employees include: early education and K–12 workers; transit, utility, sanitation, and water/wastewater utility workers; employees across the food, meatpacking, beverages, agriculture, consumer goods, and retail sectors; public works, public health, and vaccine development workers; and ride share services and pharmacy delivery drivers.

Guest blogger Janet Bowdan is professor of English at Western New England University and editor of Common Ground Review.